Could it be that young children with strong mediumship abilities are being overshadowed by the spirits of the deceased, and lack the discernment to realise the memories they are experiencing belong to someone else?

Thanks for this Jim. Prof. Ian Stevenson's work on reincarnation episodes during early life is well worth looking into, as well as his work with Iceland's Hafsteinn Bjornsson the medium though that is not irrelevant with this posting, I think it is still worth mentioning.

I often ask myself the same question Wes. I don't think I have read any accounts where overshadowing could be eliminated but there are one or two were it seems to me more likely to be reincarnation. Eghttp://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2011/11/little-big-man.html

Then again, probably in many if not most cases of ADULTS with alleged past-life memories, they're either deliberately lying, thinking wishfully, or regurgitating pseudo-memories that they've assimilated from some source in their present lives.

We live in a visually-rich, entertainment-laden culture. Most of us grow up immersed in stories, movies, and television shows about the Old West, Vikings, ancient Egypt, the Middle Ages, etc. All this imagery is permanently embedded in our subconscious.

Then again, you have stories like Mandy Seabrook, the little girl in England who told her mother that she used to be "the other little girl named Mandy that you had: the one who died: I'm that same girl", and who was able to locate the unmarked gravesite, and provide unique details about the funeral. Her mother had allegedly never even told her about her 'sister' who had died before she was born.

These types of stories, if not hoaxes concocted by their parents, would point toward either genuine reincarnation, or spirit overshadowing, rather than story-telling or vivid imagination on the child's part.

I believe that, whether the stories are being recounted by a child or an adult, we must hold them to similar evidentiary standards as we hold mediums. Vague tales about alleged lives in exotic places long ago and far away may or may not be true, but they're no more evidential than a platform medium in a room filled with 50 people asking if someone can take a gray-haired old man.